Health services in Nottingham were placed on the highest alert after more than 1,000 sought treatment at the Queen's Medical Centre's emergency department over the weekend.

Services have now been reduced to the second highest level, but health bosses stressed the need for patients to use alternative options if possible.

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was put on the highest state of alert, known as Opel 4, on Monday (February 12) and the Greater Nottingham system was places on the highest alert on Friday (February, 16).

The Greater Nottingham system includes health and social care organisations in the south of Nottinghamshire such as NUH, health and social care organisations, council services and East Midlands Ambulance Service.

Hospital bosses confirmed that the alert had been "de-escalated" on Monday morning to an Opel 3 level.

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Opel 4, which was formerly knows as a 'black alert', is put in place when pressures on the health service has left them “unable to deliver comprehensive care”.

Over the weekend, The QMC saw around 500 patients a day in its accident and emergency department - despite the department only being designed to handle 350.

Queen's Medical Centre (Image: Dan Matthams)

A spokeswoman for the QMC said that on Friday (February, 16), 534 people attended the emergency department. The figure rose to 539 on Saturday and on Sunday a total of 555 people were seen by emergency staff.

A number of wards at QMC, Nottingham City Hospital and care homes in the community were also affected with bed closures due to an outbreak of Norovirus. Beds have to be closed to minimise the spread of the infection to patients and visitors and to allow time for staff to clean the wards.

Norovirus is one of the most common stomach bugs in the UK which usually lasts for around three days and spreads from person to person very quickly.

Wendy Saviour, the managing director for health and social care in Nottinghamshire, said that the alert could be reduced due to the hard working staff, but stressed the need for patients to use alternative options if possible to reduce the strain on hospital services.

She said: “We have stepped down the Greater Nottingham system Business Continuity Incident (Opel 4), and are now on Opel 3 status thanks to the co-ordinated efforts and hard work of staff working across health and social care over the last week and over the weekend.

Nottingham's A&E is based at the Queen's Medical Centre

“Some of the beds closed as a result of infection and Norovirus have begun to come back online in hospital and in the community.

“However, with pressures remaining on our services, staff across the system continue to work with the same intensity and focus, prioritising safe care for patients and facilitating timely discharges when patients ready to leave hospital so that flow can be restored as quickly as possible.

“We ask that local people choose the right service, using pharmacies, urgent care centres, the 111 service and GPs wherever possible so that our local hospitals can prioritise patients who most need emergency care and treatment.”

Wendy Hazard, paramedic and ambulance operations manager for EMAS said: "It was a busy weekend for the health and social network. We were able to work with the emergency department at Queens Medical Centre to ensure they accepted our patients swiftly.

"This freed up our ambulance crews so they could respond to 999 patients waiting in the community. We are doing everything we can to ensure we get to patients who are in a life threatening condition as quickly as possible."

This is the second time the service has been placed on the highest alert this year.